Albert Brooks: A Star Is Bought

 

Written and produced by Albert Brooks and Harry Shearer, this LP murders, buries, exhumes, and reanimates every gimmick in the history of radio. There are DJ tools for creating a personalized Albert Brooks-spoken station ID featuring any letter of the alphabet; a "Flying Saucer"-style cut-up record where all the sampled music is snipped out of hit songs that never existed; a patriotic monologue from the point of view of a deranged, anthropomorphized United States ("I used to be ONE HELL OF A WOMAN!!!"), a standup comic trading eights with a blues guitarist, and more, including a fake old-time-radio aircheck of the WWII-era network radio program "The Albert Brooks Show". I'm really sad this remains out of print, because it's killer funny and exquisitely well thought-out. And even if it is reissued, one thing you may never experience unless you procure an original vinyl copy is the fact that each LP had an autographed 8x10 glossy inside; the front cover had four holes in which to mount the photo; and the back cover was die-cut to unfold into an easel for convenient display on your desk or mantelpiece.

In the Beginning
Phone Call to Americans
Near the Beginning
Party from Outer Space
In the Middle
Phone Calls from Americans
An End in Sight
Love Song
The End of the First Beginning
A New Beginning
Promotional Gimmick
Call This Cut Three, Side Two
The Englishman-German-Jew Blues
The Beginning of the End
The Albert Brooks Show #112 (August 4, 1943)
The End

LP art & audio

DISCLAIMER: To the best of my knowledge, this work is out of print and not available for purchase in any format. If you are the artist and are planning a reissue, please let me know and I’ll remove it from the blog. Also please get in touch if you’ve lost your art &/or sound masters and would like to talk with me about my restoration work.